Fade
by Jem.Rainbow
Summary: I can't stop. I won't. No matter how long or how many lies it takes, I'll do it. I will be perfect. One-shot centered around Emma being sick. TRIGGER WARNING
1. Fade

**My life is crazy. I'm proud of how much I've written, though. I think if I keep at this pace I can definitely hit 50k before New Year's.**

 **This story is _absoultely not by any means_ supposed to show healthy or recovering behavior. Emma is _sick_ in this one-shot, and is in a state of mind where she knows, but doesn't believe it. Nor does she want to stop. **

**Trigger warning! This story mentions eating disorders, including Ednos (eating disorder not otherwise specified) anorexia, bulimia, and binging disorder. Please do _not_ continue reading if you are easily triggered or could experience a form of PTSD. I care for your mental health. **

**There is also cyber bullying and what could be interpreted as side-effect depression. So, as I said. Please do not read this story if it will cause you issues.**

 **Disclaimer: EWW isn't mine.**

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I'm hungry.

That's the thought that has me awake at two am. It's only going to be Saturday, but the facts still stand. I should not be up at two am.

And I especially should not be hungry.

We aren't going to do this. It's not happening. I'm not going to eat when I already went a few hundred calories over my limit tonight. No.

Here we go.

I sit up in bed carefully, so I don't wake Andi, and grab my phone. Surely I will stop wanting to eat if I go over everything I did today. How much I've eaten.

I open my notes, and start to read. Breakfast was a glass of skim milk, an English muffin, and almond butter. Two teaspoons. That was 225.

I had school, and like always Jax and I got hungry during free period. So we went to Izzy's, this new restaurant that's obsessed with healthy and delicious food. I got small chicken salad with lite dressing and lemon water. 187.

Then at lunch there wasn't much to choose from, so I got Alfredo pasta topped with broccoli, another water, and some green beans. That made a total of 453 in one meal.

The second I got home I took advantage of the fact that Andi wasn't coming over until six. I did every high intensity workout I could until I felt I'd pass out and I was dizzy. I burned 650.

She took me by surprise, and brought the boys over. Getting one over on Andi is hard as it is; she knows every trick because she's pulled every trick. With the boys here too, I thought for sure someone would call me out if I didn't eat. So when they weren't looking I switched normal popcorn for skinny pop. I use my own bowl for my spices, so no one would be able to know. That was 120.

Too many. I ate too damn much today. I shouldn't have eaten almond butter with breakfast, had my snack, or eaten all the sauce they put on my lunch. Then I'd be okay. Then I might just eat something now.

Part of me is tempted to just say screw it. I mean, maybe my body knows what it's doing. Maybe all the doctors from when I had a 'disorder' the first time are right. Maybe I'm overestimating my brain's ability to tell me what to do and underestimating my body's ability to do the same. Maybe I really am sick. Maybe wanting to get down to a hundred pounds really is as dangerous as wanting to weigh eighty seven when I was thirteen.

But, what if they're wrong? What if all those comments about my weight really were right? What if _they're_ the crazy ones? What if everyone really _does_ think Jax could do better?

I can't leave bed. Surely it will wake Andi up. She won't stop me if she sees me eat. She will stop me if she catches me exercising.

I'm crazy. Eating disorders aren't supposed to effect sane people. Ednos doesn't just happen.

That's what got me. They actually invented a catch all disorder for people that can't even have a disorder right. I'm not bulimic; I rarely ever purge. I'm not anorexic; my bmi never really qualified and I eat too often. I sure as hell don't have binging disorder for obvious reasons. I can't even be sick properly!

Andi knows that I used to have serious Ednos. Two years ago she overheard my dad tell me he was proud that I looked healthy again. Turns out she went through the battle too. Difference is; _she_ was anorexic. She did it right.

A few weeks ago when I got salad instead of pizza on double date night, she called me out in the bathroom. She kept asking what I ate that day, and telling me that I didn't need to diet. I told her I was just trying to be healthier; that there was no trigger.

I lied to her. That morning I got an instagram comment that I deleted so Jax wouldn't see. But, noy until after I screenshotted it.

 _He is so out of her league! Like, who manages to look **ugly** and **fat** in black sequins?_

It didn't matter that people blew up on her. It didn't matter how many people said we looked great together. It didn't matter how many people said I looked great. All that left an impact was that one criticism. It's always _one_ criticism.

I can't stand the thought of him knowing. Jax, Andi, and my dad are the three people in this world that mean the most to me. I can not, _will_ not see him look at me the way my dad and Andi did when they found out. Whether it was two seconds or two years, that memory doesn't _ever_ fade. I don't want another one.

Andi tried to challenge me tonight. I said I ate the last of the pizza and she offered to take out the trash. Scariest moment of the last five weeks of my life.

Jax hasn't caught on. All he's done is be supportive. Told me how _proud_ he is that I do exercise outside of scrapbooking. It's almost better when he has a chance to catch me. If it wasn't for him telling Andi to back off tonight the jig would be up. He's helping me, even if it's accidental.

That makes me feel horrible, though. I lie to him about eating, and he defends me in front of Andi. They both love me, and want what's best for me. However, Andi can tell what I'm doing. She's done it all before.

I'm a bad girlfriend. I lie every day now, just so I can limit calories. So I can be perfect. I lie to someone that tells me every day how gorgeous I am because I don't believe him.

I've gone from 118 to 109 in less than two months. I'm happy about it. Every website I've been to says that's not healthy. But, everyone else is wrong. I'm not the messed up one, they are. I'm not a liar, not to myself. I don't have the faulty eyes.

My uniform doesn't fit. I've had to go back to wearing my one from sophomore year, when I was still gaining back weight. Part of me knows that it's a red flag. But I don't know how to stop, and I won't ask for help. I don't want my hard work undone. I won't go back to Dr. Lucacy, the dietician that monitored me until December, three years ago. I'm too proud and stubborn to go back.

I hear Andi start to stir, and quickly shut off my phone. She rolls over, and stops stirring. She's still asleep.

Whew, that was close.

Looking at the clock, I see that it now reads 3:25. I spent an hour and a half thinking about this. That's why I'm tired.

Tomorrow I'll eat better. I'll have a piece of toast and hot sauce with water, instead. That'll be 60.

Tomorrow I will do what I must.

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 **This turned out shorter than I had planned, because writing in such a sick mindset is hard. Part of her may know she's doing things she shouldn't, but she doesn't want to stop. Writing on** **e of my favorite characters being so, messed up, made me sad. Especially because it is not a healthy mindset in the slightest.**

 **I hope this story evoked the proper emotions. Sadness, worry, stuff like that. This was meant to explore the darker parts of mental illness, in a POV that clearly shows the issues while also not fully grasping the fact that they're there. I hope that in some weird way this was enjoyable!**

 **Review?**


	2. Trying

**Hi friends! I'm back and kicking! Why am I so upbeat on an Ed story... Oh, right. Because I want you all to smile, and stay in a healthy mental state.**

 **This is far less angsty than Fade (in my opinion), and it's in a slightly better state of mind. I like to call this the attempting stage. The first story took place in March, 2017. This one takes place a few months later, around late October/ early November. So, present day. If you read this within a week and at no other time...**

 **This is still about an eating disorder. That means it can be a trigger, for backsliding or anything else. If you feel you may be triggered by something like this, I highly recommend you click off of this story now and go read one of my happier ones. I am deeply concerned for the health of all my readers.**

 **Disclaimer: EWW isn't mine. This is an angsty story. You have been warned.**

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It never ends.

Every single second of every single day is a battle in itself. You try to stop, at every meal. You force yourself to pay less attention to nutrition facts and more to enjoying food. You try to chew less and drink less and keep holding your fork. You binge on peanut butter and pizza and candy because it's Halloween, the hell are you supposed to do? But no matter how hard you try, it always comes back. You walk into the bathroom and you always end up on that damn scale, regardless of how hard you try to stay off it. Sometimes, you can't even explain how you end up there, because you don't know. But every time, it happens.

Everyone has known for months. Sometime in May you ran away from an intervention and while you were on that run you ended up passing out. Mrs. Miller had been there minutes before, and you didn't hurt yourself, luckily.

Ever since this started you've been up and down, up and down on the scale. You'd hit 103 and binging brought you up to 114 again. Once you start you basically don't stop. Ever.

Jax can't tell. You eat nearly 5000 calories one day, and the next few you run 'errands', which is your cover for fasting and a six mile run. And then you believe you burned it and everything is okay again. You eat 1500, and work your ass off, and then the cycle starts all over again. Endless.

Andi is getting suspicious again. You can't be on runs with Mia anymore, and coincidentally you started buying way too many items that were "dry clean only", yet never show the tags. You got better about your tricks, but she still knows most of the ones that people with EDS have, just in general.

You are so damn lucky it's stupid. You weighed 101 when you passed out that day in May. Another half pound under you would have been hospitalized, instead of put on a recovery plan. That you stopped following really quickly, because 2500 a day was literally making you sick to your stomach.

That blueberry smoothie saved your ass.

You want so badly to change. It's your biggest wish to be okay again. To eat three pizzas like Andi can.

But, just like she was the one that got sick properly, she's the one that recovered properly. You didn't do either right.

You have a hard time getting away with it. Jax forces you to eat four times a day, minimum. That's what happens when you live in the same apartment as someone: they can monitor you with less effort.

It would be so _easy_ to give up.

Yeah, it would. But that saying is bullshit. For every ounce of effort you'd need at the start of a disorder, you have to double it at the end. Pulling yourself out of this is hard, and scary. Sometimes you think you've done it, and it's those days that being content feels more like being numb and you work your ass off exercising because you need to feel something.

This is vicious. You want to scream, cry, run, do anything you can do to feel. At one point ot was about the scale, but somewhere along the line that became less and less important. You don't know what it is anymore: control, the numbers, or fear of not caring anymore. But something continuously sends you reeling back to the start.

You don't even have to try to figure it out. The calorie count of everything is an automatic reflex. You just, do it without even trying. It fucking terrifies you to know that even when you don't know you know.

It's always at least enough daily exercise to burn off a thousand calories, daily. Walk a mile, run two. Squats and jumping jacks and burpees are such an integral part of daily life you're used to the soreness.

You are trying _so_ hard to get better. You don't want to get hurt, or die, or whatever the heck else can happen to you. Every fiber in your being has always wanted a family, and this thing could take it from you. But now, you binge right around that time of the month, so it won't happen to go away.

This is so hellacious you wouldn't wish it on your worst enemy. The lack of sleep, the exhaustion that you can't feel, the hunger that doesn't really come, it's all tough. Try, try, try. That's all you ever hear, whether it's when Jax gives you food or Andi asks you to talk to her about this. You want to suceed.

You don't.

The memory of when you had a panic attack over a number is still fresh in your mind. You were in some algebra class, and it mentioned food during a word problem. Specifically, a word problem about a meal exceeding 2000 calories.

It was only words. It was easy as _hell_ to complete. But, you couldn't make it happen. You freaked out, and your head automatically sped up a thousand miles trying to figure out how you were going to burn it off. Which, what a surprise, got you sent to the nurse over shakiness. It was before anyone knew, so telling her it was just stress from school got you out of it.

That is the only time you were ever glad Lily had to be replaced. One look at you, and she would have been able to tell you lied, and probably given you truth serum. Which had god knows how many calories in it.

Every once in a while you get caught doing ED things. Small ones, but they're there. Refusing snacks at a party, always eating lunch in situations where you aren't with the group you tell about it. Your friends and your family have taken care of you for months, and they let it slide. Ando always insists that she still feels the occasional pull toward a relapse, and you need time.

Time, time, time. Numbers, that's all it is. More numbers to think about, to schedule your binging and workouts and your diuretics around. It's another thing you can't control, yet use to control everything at the same time. Maybe time is helpful.

Run, eat, sleep, cry, repeat. No way out, no way to get help. Just, a vicious cycle.

The only thing you can do is keep trying.

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 **I hope that in some strange way you liked this! I love you guys. Review?**


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